Is fresh always best? Not according to a recent study, which found that canned foods can offer as many nutrients, but more cheaply and conveniently. Here are some especially nutritious canned goods that won't strain your wallet.

Tomatoes

“Fruity vegetables” like tomatoes — a good source of dietary fiber — are also high in vitamin C, which boosts your immune system and can help fend off respiratory issues. Tomatoes and tomato products also contain an antioxidant compound called lycopene, which may help reduce the risks of cancer, heart disease and age-related blindness.

Kapica and her fellow researchers found that it is 60% more expensive to get dietary fiber from fresh tomatoes than from a can. “Not only is the price of canned tomatoes lower than fresh for the same serving size, but fresh tomatoes take longer to prepare, adding to the real cost of fresh,” the researchers said in a statement.

@b-sb Please take a course in reading comprehension, because yours is sorely lacking. That wasn't the point of the article. The point of the article was that all other factors considered (waste, prep time, energy costs, etc) canned foods represent a much greater value for the money. If you want to make a tuna sandwich or tuna salad, are you going to use fresh tuna or canned? You would have to cook the fresh, raw tuna first, and then shred it to match what comes in a can. You have to pay for the energy to use the stove to cook it and expend time to get it to the same stage as the canned. It might look better and even taste better to do it yourself, but it will cost a lot more even if you only value your time at minimum wage (and many people value their time a lot higher than that). Any nutritional losses from the processing of canned tuna would be more than offset by the lower cost per pound.